This is not a Joke

This is not a joke. We did not play an April Fools Joke on Ned this year. I feel terrible about this. In my vast experience I have never found a better person (victim?) upon whom to play April Fools Jokes. Ned’s perfection for this role derives from his uniquely charming combination of gullibility, innocence, and passionate attachments to all sorts of odd things, e.g. The Green Egg. I felt so badly about this that I apologized to his wife that circumstances beyond my control, as we like to call them, prevented me from moving forward with our plan to have Ned contacted by the Irish Golf Board. She assured Ned that he would not be fooled, at least not today.
But did he believe her? Or me?

I do have an excuse. Yesterday morning I was driving back from my chest x-ray mentally putting the finishing touches on my plot. Then I got home and learned, through her tears, that my niece’s* Slovakian boyfriend had just broken up with her via email. What a Bratislava shit. The focus of the day radically shifted from foolery to solace.

This was followed by more familial drama, which unusual discretion forces me to merely allude to but not explicate. Use your imagination, but I promise you won’t guess. (HINT: one drama involved a B&B, one of whose rooms features a “private prayer nook”.)
Plus there was way more plaster dust everywhere than I anticipated or even thought possible.
And you’re right if you think these are pathetic excuses. That is the nature of excuses.

*currently staying with us.